Asad Shah's Brother Fought In Vain To Save Him

CCTV footage of the attack on Asad Shah showed the moment his brother and colleague tried in vain to save his life.

Personal trainer Athar Shah used the only weapon available - an advertising sign in the street outside the shop - in an attempt to rescue his brother.

He was helped by shop assistant Stephen McFadyen, who bravely grabbed the knife from Tanveer Ahmed as he carried out the murderous attack.

The chain of events leading up to the killing appeared to begin two days before on March 22, when Ahmed was staying with a mutual friend of Mr Shah in Glasgow.

He seemed to already have an interest in his victim, asking his host whether he knew "Shah from Glasgow''.

It was at that point that Ahmed was shown for the first time Facebook posts made by Mr Shah suggesting that he was a prophet.

The killer returned to Bradford on March 23, leaving his friend with no reason to think that anything would come of the incident.

But the following day he was again driving north and during the journey used his mobile to watch a video of Mr Shah claiming to be a prophet.

"Listen to this guy, something needs to be done, it needs nipped in the bud,'' he said in a phone message at the time.

When Ahmed arrived at the Minard Road shop at about 9pm, Mr Shah was busy serving customers with Mr McFadyen while his brother was in the basement premises below.

In a conversation between the two men in Urdu, the killer is said to have attempted and failed to "persuade Mr Shah to his point of view''.

He can then be seen on CCTV reaching into his robes, pulling out a knife and moving round the counter to attack his victim.

Despite Mr McFadyen's attempts to intervene, Mr Shah was repeatedly stabbed in the head and body, with the blows continuing as he fled into the street.

Arriving on the scene, Athar Shah dragged his injured brother away and tried to fend off the killer with the sign, while Mr McFadyen grabbed the knife and hid it in nearby bushes.

Their pleas for Ahmed to stop were ignored as he continued to punch, kick and stamp Mr Shah "with full force'' before walking calmly to a nearby bus shelter where he sat with his head bowed ``as if in prayer''.

A passing GP and nurse stopped to help but Mr Shah was pronounced dead less than an hour after the killer first entered his shop.

In court, prosecutor Iain McSporran highlighted the "brave'' and "valiant'' efforts of Mr McFadyen and Athar Shah, who suffered a knife wound to the neck as he defended his brother.

He said: "In particular Athar Shah, who witnessed his brother being murdered and who bears a terrible sense of guilt at what he sees, quite wrongly, as his failure to help him, has suffered greatly both mentally and physically.''